Tag Archives: Peter Kent

Here is the list for the Best Movie Stunts for the Decade 1990-1999 as listed in the book, 100 Years of the Best Movie Stunts!

1990 – The Rookie

It was reported that over eighty stuntmen worked on this film. There were way more stuntmen on this film than there were actors! It’s no wonder when you have legends Terry Leonard as the stunt coordinator and Buddy Van Horn as the 2nd Unit Director. Great action film directed by Clint Eastwood himself.

1991 – Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Another great Director that loves to do live stunts is James Cameron. The action summer blockbuster is on full force with this one. A great little stunt by Peter Kent doubling for Arnold Schwarzenegger as he jumps a Harley into a canal.

1992 – Supercop

It’s not Jackie Chan who gets the nod on this one (although, he does some great stunts in it too), it’s Michelle Yeoh who does some fantastic stunts on a motorcycle and on the hood of a little red convertible.

1993 – Cliffhanger

Obviously, this film has some great climbing sequences, but it’s a plane to plane transfer by Simon Crane that really wows the audience. These days we would just do this in a computer, they decided to do this as a practical stunt. With Jets.

1994 – True Lies

Another great action film by James Cameron, and he manages to talk Jamie Lee Curtis to hang underneath a helicopter for a few slow-mo shots. On her birthday none-the-less.

1995 – Goldeneye

James bond does it again, this time Pierce Brosnan as 007. The opening jump from a dam was performed by Wayne Michaels doubling for Brosnan however, and it’s a fun one to open the movie with.

1996 – Mission: Impossible

Tom Cruise is the finest actor ever to do his own stunts and he proves it time and time again. He’s got nerves of steel. In this film I count at least 3 stunts that he performs himself that most stunt performers themselves would turn down.

1997 – Titanic

The 3rd movie this decade directed by James Cameron on the list. It’s a wonder he has time for anything else. There are a lot of special effects in this one, but there are a lot of practical and dangerous work done throughout by the cast and crew as a whole. It won Best Picture at the Academy Awards that year, and if there was an Oscar for Stunts, it should have won that too.

1998 – Ronan

Fantastic car chase sequence, right at home in a Bourne movie, John Frankenheimer hits the list again 32 years apart! The first time was with James Garner in Grand Prix, another movie with great car stunt driving.

1999 – The Matrix

The Wachowski Brothers revolutionized the Action film with this one and studios scrambled to make films like this for years after. The actors worked very closely with the stunt performers in this film and Yuen Woo-Ping made sure they were ready with months and months of training beforehand.

Stuntman Peter Kent’s resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger was the basis of a 14-year association with the ex-action hero. As Schwarzenegger’s stunt double he performed the T-101’s famous motorbike jump into a massive storm drain. To get the effect, his motorbike was rigged up to a web of one-inch cables, to cut the impact when the bike and rider hit the ground. The cables were later digitally erased.
Peter Kent performed the stunt again in the Canadian TV Series, StuntDawgs. It’s a great peek at how the stunt performers and the stunt team on a movie production plan and execute their stunts. I recommend this series for anyone who wants to see how stunt people make their magic, right in front of your eyes. A rare glimpse into this fascinating part of film making.

Peter Kent on StuntDawgs

Terminator 2: Judgement Day was directed by James Cameron for Carolco Pictures.

Things to look up (go to IMDB page):

Peter Kent

Terminator 2

James Cameron

CarolCo Pictures

History of film companies as defined by Wikipedia: Carolco Pictures, Inc. was an American independent film production company that, within a decade, went from producing such blockbuster successes as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Total Recall, and the first three movies of the Rambo series (First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Rambo III) to being bankrupted by box office bombs such as Cutthroat Island and Showgirls.

I’d have to say upfront that the female stunt performers at the very start of the film industry were very impressive. They were always expected to do things that even men wouldn’t do. I’m sure that hasn’t changed over the years because just a few years ago, acclaimed stuntman and Arnold Schwarzegenner Stunt Double, Peter Kent, said of female stunt performers, “A lot of times the guys are wearing pads and stuff under their pants. But then you’ll get a woman in a skimpy dress doing a stair fall, and you can’t hide anything under that. I give kudos to a lot of the stunt-women out there because many times they take way more of a beating than the men do. ‘We want you to do this in a frigging negligee. Okay.'”

Musidora gets my nod for 1915 due to sheer style. Her mystique was accentuated by large, dark eyes and a habit of wearing a black leotard, hood and tights while on the set.Born Jeanne Roques, she used Musidora as a stage name. She started out as an acrobat and did all her own stunts in this film serial. It’s also interesting to note, her character’s name in the film, Irma Vep, is an anagram for Vampire. Vamp is a colloquial term applied to describe a particular type of femme fatale, popular in silent films. The term is a shortening of the word vampire, and is used to describe a woman who is glamorous in an exotic, stylized and usually overstated manner. She is usually noted for her striking features, dark clothing and hair, and cosmetics which darken and accentuate the eyes and lips. Her character is a heartless seductress, and the men she seduces are usually shown as helpless victims unable to resist her. From the perspective of American film audiences, she is often seen as foreign, usually of undetermined Eastern European or Asian ancestry. She was designed as the sexual counterpoint of the wholesome actresses such as Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford. Among the notable vamps of the silent screen were Theda Bara, Louise Glaum, Musidora, Nita Naldi, Pola Negri, and in her earliest film appearances, Myrna Loy.

The Gaumont film, Les Vampires, directed by French film Director, Louis Feuillade, is a 10-part serial, and is about gangsters and secret societies inspired by the exploits of the real-life Bonnot Gang, rather than what the title suggests, Vampires. It’s a very good film serial and is very popular for it’s many twists throughout the film. It’s considered one of the first action crime thrillers. Though not intended to be “avant-garde,” Les Vampires has been lauded by critics as the birth of avant-garde cinema and cited by such renowned filmmakers as Fritz Lang and Luis Buñuel as being extremely influential in their desire to become directors. It’s listed in “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” edited by Steven Jay Schneider.

Femme-Fatale – The phrase is French for “deadly woman”, a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art. Her ability to entrance and hypnotize her victim with a spell was in the earliest stories seen as being literally supernatural; the femme fatale today is still often described as having a power akin to an enchantress, seductress, vampire, witch, or demon, having some power over men.

A femme fatale tries to achieve her hidden purpose by using feminine wiles such as beauty, charm, and sexual allure. In some situations, she uses lying or coercion rather than charm.

Although typically villainous, if not morally ambiguous, and always associated with a sense of mystification and unease, femmes fatales have also appeared as antiheroines in some stories, and some even repent and become true heroines by the end of the tale.

Avant-Garde – Avant-garde(from French, “advance guard” or “vanguard”) is a French term used in English as a noun or adjective to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art,culture, and politics.

Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism.